Ian Ruhter’s Most Challenging Portrait Ever: The Celebrity Portrait

Some shoots are just shoots. Others are an experience you walk away from knowing something you did not know before. Ian Ruhter‘s celebrity portrait shoot definitely belongs in the latter category.

Today, we have something special for you. Wet plates maestro Ian Ruhter has released a new video. It’s called The Making of a Celebrity Portrait, andit’s quite unlike any other video on portrait photography we’ve ever seen.

“Based on who this person is I knew I would scrutinize this image far more than any other portrait that I had ever made,” writes Ian about the project. “During this project The Making of a Celebrity Portrait, it redefined how I view celebrities. It made me question if celebrity culture influenced us so greatly that we want to be portrayed like them. In a world that revolves around social networking and selfies I started wondering what these images really say about us.

Ian also encourages viewers to engage in the project by sharing a portrait of themselves:

“NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! I’m asking you to include a photograph of yourself for this project. The idea is to collect many images so we can create one picture of who we really are. Hashtag a portrait of you with #iamthecelebrity on Instagram! All month long we’ll be cataloguing and commenting on these images. Once this is done we’ll create the final project! Stay tuned for updates by following me and Profoto.”